


Images of the past

by Ariana (Ariana_El)



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Gen, Memories, Nerdanel missing her family, Nostalgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:41:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23947840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariana_El/pseuds/Ariana
Summary: Nerdanel returns to the old house she used to share with Feanor and finds something unexpected.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 33





	Images of the past

**Author's Note:**

> It is an accidental ficlet that evolved from one silly comment and turned out to be not a silly nor cracky story at all.

At first Nerdanel dreaded to step into the house she had shared with Fëanaro and their sons. The wound in her heart was too fresh and the memories too painful to relive within the walls that had stood witness to the best years of her life.

But long time had passed and Nerdanel grew tired of sharing the household with her parents, of sharing the forge with her father and the workshop with her mother. The former brought too many childhood memories of hours spent in the hot place, learning to bent metal to her will and heart to her love, forging a bond that was too strong to destroy yet too brittle to withstand the evil tainting her husband's thoughts. The latter was... Not hers anymore. Her mother had long since adapted her old rooms and workshops for her own and it was no longer as it once had been.

With the new light on the sky some of the hope seemed to return among the people and Nerdanel too felt some of the heaviness lifted from her burdened heart. And so one day on a chilly spring morning she left her father’s house and wandered up the streets of the half abandoned Tirion. It was a grim walk, as only few decided to remain in the old city while Arafinwe built a new one. But in the sunlight the city no longer bore the scent of fear and torches. It was simply empty but nonetheless, Nerdanel felt relieved when she finally reached her old house.

It was like nothing she had ever experienced. In her youth she had travelled a lot with Fëanaro and they had loved to discover wild, secluded areas where only spirits dwelt, but this.... This was rediscovering a place she could move around with her eyes closed, so familiar it was and yet so foreign. Walking through the rooms once emptied when her husband and sons had moved to Formenos, Nerdanel wept, but also felt like she was finally home.

Walking past the rooms facing the garden, Nerdanel pushed the doors at the end and entered Fëanaro's old study. The shelves were almost empty, so the last thing she expected to find was a palantir still standing on his desk, covered in dust but otherwise untouched by the time. Why had Feanaro not taken it to Formenos? Had he left the crystal for her? Or had he brought it here later, before leaving Valinor?

Many said the palantirs could hold the images of the past, though few had ever used them; small was the need of them in the Blessed Realm. It was the truth, and Nerdanel, being Fëanaro's wife, could bend his palantir to her will and make it show her whatever she wished. Now, however, being too overwhelmed with the memories this place brought, she picked the stone without any clear intention.

To her astonishment, the first image that came to the surface was that of her, sleeping peacefully on her side, a tiny bundle of blankets close to her chest. It was Maitimo, she realised, but a few days after he was born. His coming to the world had torn Fëanaro away from his studies. Nerdanel remembered her husband sneaking to work a bit when she rested and their firstborn slept. She hadn't been aware, though, that he had been watching her all the time while studying. Knowing how anxious he was about her delivering a child, she should not have been surprised.

As her mind gave in to the vision and brought memories of the happy past, more images appeared. She watched mesmerised as her sons took their first wobbly steps. Some of the memories she shared with her husband, but some were clearly Fëanaro's. The time when she went to visit her cousin and left Fëanaro with Maitimo in charge of their household, only to come back and discover that they had adapted some of the (yet) unused rooms for her new study. She leaned closer to watch the chaos of the preparations Fëanaro only partly handled and learned that the abstract picture which hang by the doors was in fact the result of Tyelkormo tripping over a palet of paints, covering with colorful splashes not only a table board that later became a picture, but also himself and his father.

Time meant nothing here. Nerdanel sat lost to the living world, her mind wandering far off to the better times, to this innocent life she could now see washed in the mingling light of the Trees that were now lost to them forever.

It was Mahtan who came looking for her and found her crouched on the floor and it took nearly all of her willpower to break from the images luring her into the world of the past, frozen in perfect images. Perfect they were not, of course, yet to her they seemed so. But they were just bittersweet memories and there, outside, there was the world of the living.

Her father tried to ask her not to come back again, but she couldn't bring herself to make a promise she would probably break. She headed his advice though and stayed away from her old home for some time, lost in her work, a series of figures which was later called one of her best collections. Even later, when she finally moved back to the old house and rearranged it, she kept the palantir hidden. It remained there, in Fëanaro's old study, one of the few places she had kept unchanged. Most of the time she kept it locked.

But sometimes, when the statues she kept deep in her study, just for herself, when the statues were cold and dead, unlike what was so often said of her creations, then she would come and look and for but a moment let herself remember them how they once had been and not what they had become.


End file.
